Friday: SCHOLAR Projects

Most real-world projects require you to learn something new. New libraries, new tools, new datasets, new domains, and new technologies are part of everyday professional practice.

One of the learning goals of this course is developing the ability to teach yourself new skills and share what you learn with others.

To support this goal, the course maintains SCHOLAR (Student-Crafted Hub for Open Learning and Academic Resources), a repository of student-created tutorials and technical resources:

• https://gitlab.msu.edu/CMSE/SCHOLAR

Core Idea

Learn something new. Document what you learned. Help the next student learn it faster.

The SCHOLAR repository is intended to grow over time. Each semester students benefit from the work of previous classes and contribute resources that help future students.

Why This Matters

SCHOLAR supports several important course goals:

• Independent learning
• Technical communication
• Reproducible workflows
• Collaborative software development
• Community contribution through Git

The goal is not simply to complete a tutorial. The goal is to improve your ability to learn unfamiliar material, evaluate technical resources, and communicate what you learn clearly.

Friday SCHOLAR Work

Many Friday class sessions will be dedicated to SCHOLAR activities.

Early in the semester, teams will review existing tutorials, test instructions, identify issues, and suggest improvements. Later activities may include developing new tutorials, improving documentation, fixing technical problems, or contributing entirely new content.

A useful tutorial is often more valuable than a complicated tutorial. Focus on helping future students succeed.

Reviewing Existing Tutorials

One of the best ways to improve documentation is to approach it as a new user.

As you work through a tutorial, ask yourself:

• Can the tutorial be completed successfully?
• Are the instructions clear and easy to follow?
• Is anything confusing, missing, or outdated?
• Do links, commands, code examples, and screenshots still work?
• Could the tutorial be made more reproducible or easier to maintain?

When you find a problem, document it using a GitLab issue.

GitLab Issues

Issues are used to track bugs, documentation improvements, feature requests, and future work.

A good issue clearly explains:

• What the problem is
• Where the problem occurs
• Why it matters
• What changes might improve the situation

Specific issues are far more useful than general complaints. For example, “Step 3 refers to a file that no longer exists” is much more actionable than “this tutorial is confusing.”

Do not mark course issues as confidential. The goal is to improve the shared repository for everyone.

Pull Requests

SCHOLAR is a shared repository. Changes should be contributed through pull requests.

Students are encouraged to use SCHOLAR as an opportunity to practice professional Git workflows. Whenever possible:

1. Fork the repository.
2. Clone your fork locally.
3. Create a branch for your work.
4. Commit your changes and reference the associated issue.
5. Push your branch and submit a pull request.

Please review the course [Git resources](Git Repository Organization] and Dirk’s Rules for Repositories before submitting contributions.

A few common mistakes to avoid:

• Editing files that are unrelated to your contribution.
• Including temporary or generated files.
• Forgetting to reference the issue being addressed.
• Using vague branch names or commit messages.
• Submitting changes that you have not personally tested.

Remember that dozens of students may be contributing at the same time. Small, focused pull requests are easier to review and merge than large changes.

Quality Expectations

Contributions should reflect your own understanding of the material.

AI tools, online resources, and existing documentation may be used to support your work. However, you should be able to explain what you submitted and why you made the changes that you did.

Focus on clarity, simplicity, reproducibility, and usefulness for future students.

Earning Credit

SCHOLAR contributions include both individual and team responsibilities.

Each student is expected to submit at least one well-written issue that identifies a meaningful problem or improvement in an existing tutorial. Each student is also expected to submit at least one pull request that resolves an issue or improves repository content.

Teams are expected to contribute at least one new tutorial or substantial tutorial enhancement during the semester.

These minimum expectations are intended to help everyone gain experience reviewing documentation, working with Git workflows, and contributing to shared technical resources.

Honors Option

Students pursuing the Honors Option may participate in SCHOLAR repository stewardship activities such as issue triage, review coordination, repository maintenance, and tutorial development. See the course ./Syllabus for details.